VK3AUU, nothing makes my day more than being told to "go back to the dictionary" by some fool who is confidently and utterly wrong. "Decimation" does NOT mean "reducing to one tenth of the original". It means "reducing BY one tenth of the original"; the term is derived from the Roman practice of randomly selecting every tenth person for execution: a form of collective punishment.

Mirth aside ... what is my solution? As I have stated clearly on other anti-population threads, I advocate assisting developing nations to become prosperous, well-educated liberal democracies: history clearly shows that it's the best -and certainly most humane - method of reducing birth rates.

Yabby, not so much "paranoia about green dictatorships" as urging people pushing the anti-population barrow to think clearly about what they are saying, and acknowledge the dreadful implications of their arguments. If you're adamant that the human population must be reduced by 60-70% in the next 50 years, then the arithmetic is deadly and unavoidable.

This has been my whole point all along, but with the exception of ericc the antihumanists seem determined to leave their calculators, not to mention their brains, gathering dust in the drawer.

"religious nuts from the West"? Not their home-grown religious nuts? The mullahs were quite happy to jump into bed with the Bible-thumpers when it came to blocking family planning. But yes, religious nuts from the West, especially the Gaia worshippers are a thorn in the side of the developing world; they'll even lie to convince starving African countries to reject food aid, to advance their agenda.

So no, I have no truck with religious nutcases, whether they worship Jayzuz, Allah or Gaia; they all live the lie of "don't do as I do, do as I say".

To conclude: I'm all for putting the brakes on population growth, which by and large we have been successfully doing for the last 40 years. It's the means, not the end that I disagree about. I just want the miserable, misanthropic radical anti-populationists to stop and think for a moment about where their rhetoric is leading.

VK3AUU, actually Clownfish has it right.
The word 'decimation' comes from the Roman practice of punishment in the legions. A unit selected for punishment would be divided into groups of ten. The ten would draw lots, and the loser would be stoned or clubbed to death by the other nine.
Decimated = 1 in every 10 dies.
I think just about everyone here agrees that the Earth is overpopulated by Humans (and probably cattle and sheep). I don't believe anyone is advocating war or designer plague to rectify the situation, so perhaps the only remaining argument is whether or not China's one child policy is 'draconian' or not. (remember, I advocate addressing poverty, and population will very soon fix itself).
Imagine if I could indulge in a dream I have often had, and create a Utopia on a small island. Clearly agricultural and residential space would be strictly limited as would all resources. If we had no boats (or we simply didn't want to be 'imperialists'), we would have no choice but to restrict our population; and clearly the most humane way of doing that is ensuring that too many people aren't born in the first place.
It's well past time we worked out the whole bloody planet is just one big island.

Believe it or not, it took me more than 6 minutes and 11 seconds to write that.
buggar.

Clownfish, I am glad I made your day.
However, as it turns out we are actually both right.
The original usage of the term was as you have stated. Modern useage is generally along the lines of the following, according to Encarta.

"The popular meaning of decimate, "to destroy," now predominates because the need for a word meaning "to kill one person in ten" has greatly diminished. Even so, the popular meaning is not accepted by everyone, and it is often better to use annihilate, exterminate, destroy, or devastate."

We shall have to agree to disagree.

*I advocate assisting developing nations to become prosperous, well-educated liberal democracies: history clearly shows that it's the best -and certainly most humane - method of reducing birth rates.*

Well that is wonderful Clowny, give it a few hundred years and you
might get there, if the system does not collapse first from too many
people. Fact is that we know that family planning works quite well,
even in poor countries, if women are given a choice.

Women in the West stopped having all those babies, when the pill
became available. In countries where it was banned, like Ireland,
it was smuggled in by the boatload!

Fact is that we could address the population issue now, not in
hundreds of years, if we chose to.

*The mullahs were quite happy to jump into bed with the Bible-thumpers when it came to blocking family planning.*

Big difference, Islam has no centralised power structure, as does
the Catholic Church. So the Mullah down the road may totally
disagree in his interpretation and implementation. In fact in
a number of countries like Iran, Bangaladesh etc, we are seeing
alot of effort put into family planning, as they understand the
threat of overpopulation. It affects them daily.

The problem with the Catholics is that they claim the pope is
infallible, so can't go back on what another pope said, without
severe embarrssment. So they plod on with their spin regardless,
never mind the human misery that they are guilty of, due to their
belief. Suffering is seemingly noble, the real keen ones like
Opus Dei, even whip themselves!

Hundreds of millions of women in the third world suffer because
of the pope. No mullah has that kind of power or authority.

Fact is that lets say women only had the kids they wanted and
as a result in 50 years, the global population fell to 3 billion.
In human sustainability terms that would certainly be a good
thing, not a bad thing.

Nice try VK3AUU, but you specifically said "reducing to one tenth of the original". Not even allowing a bastardised meaning of the word lets you off the hook. I did warn you that I was going to be pedantic ;)

Ah, so it's all the wicked Catholics fault, Yabby? "Conservative Islamic leaders (who) have openly campaigned against the use of condoms or other birth control methods, thus making population planning in many countries ineffective" (BBC), have nothing to do with it?

Well, we seem to agree that allowing people reproductive choice is the key, you just seem to think that throwing millions of boxes of pills and condoms at the developing world will work some miraculous magic trick. I'd much prefer to see the developing world become educated, prosperous and free, and the rest will follow; no Paternalism needed.

But why would it take hundreds of years? When were Women's Lib and the Pill introduced into Western countries?